It was really quite fun,
A month out of work!
But the cash equaled none,
A troublesome quirk.

So out I did go,
On the job hunt.
Searching high and low,
For work as a grunt.

Far did I walk,
'Til my feet were quite tired.
On doors did I knock,
Looking to be hired.

Employment bound,
I worried for my debt.
When none could be found,
I turned to the Net.

To my great joy,
There I did find,
Those who would employ,
And lift me from my bind.

It's manual labour,
A company with spunk!
Helping out our neighbours,
With their piles of junk.

It will be hard work,
And some hauling of trash,
But there is one perk,
A pocket full of cash!

Labels: work, write

There used to be a sense of panic and urgency that accompanied the shrill, ear-piercing tones of a tripped fire alarm. That purposely unpleasant eardrum assault would shatter the silence and send those present scrambling for the exits, snapping up pieces of pretty they just couldn't do without in their post-blaze existence.

I'm certain the fire alarm still means something to many, but in my own personal experience, the traditional warning of a creeping conflagration falls on mildy irritated ears.

Back in school, fire alarms were routinely activated. In the beginning, we all filed out according to evacuation procedures, a little concern showing on our schoolyard faces. In the end, we grudgingly scraped our chairs back and got up, rolling our eyes at one another while trudging towards the exits.

Two habitations ago, in my days as a condo mooch, alarms were set off every now and then for testing purposes. Make sure that they actually still work and all that. I was informed of such, and did not feel compelled to evacuate.

One habitation ago, in my days as a roach wrangler in a tower of pestilence, alarms went off frequently for seemingly no reason. This was a particularly biting siren, one that chose to carve it's way through my auditory canals at obscene hours. There never was any actual fire. Eventually I had to cover the speaker in my apartment with duct tape to quiet it some.

Zero habitations ago, in my current abode, things are quite still. However, the other day, an alarm went off. I sat at my computer for a few seconds, pondering. I glanced out the window and saw nothing of note. No flame-engulfed citizens fleeing the premesis. No hose-laden red trucks. I glanced back at the door, and saw no smoke curling up from the gap at the bottom. I smelled the air and detected no hint of burning merch.

So I shrugged and went back to work.

A lifetime of testing and falsely prompted alarms has left me generally unconcerned when I hear one. It used to mean "Evacuate immediately!". Then it meant "Should we evacuate?". Now it means "Man, that's annoying. Pass the doritos."

Pass the doritos indeed.

Labels: live

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I have a pretty cool name. I won't lie. It's awesome. People tell me I don't really need to have an online handle, because my real life name is pretty sweet.

It looks cool, sounds cool, and if you take the space out, it looks like a machine gun sound effect. Mattatack! Mattatackamattatacka! Can't beat that!

In addition to all of that nonsense, my initials of M and A are both symmetrical letters. That's been quite a boon in designing logos for myself in the past. No, I'm not a weirdo who goes by a symbol instead of my actual name! The logos were for websites or watermarks for artworks!

Anyways, here's all the old logos I created that are built out of my initials. They're basically all variations of the same idea, the M stacked on top of the A. The last one at the bottom right is a slightly different combination, but again, same idea.

Labels: design

Squidfaces! They're everywhere, I tell you. I know this because I've seen them with my squishy viewing spheres!

There's just something really cool (or creepy, depending on who you are and where you come from) about a being with a mass of tentacles coming out of it's face. In most instances, a creature of this nature is designated as being evil, or a generally bad guy. I aim to prove this is not the case! Come along with me!

First up, Davy Jones, as realized in the the two Pirates sequels, Dead Man's Chest and At World's End. He was pretty freakin' awesome, with his face all full up of squirmies.

He was...kind of evil though. I mean, you sort of feel bad for him after all that Calypso hogwash is finally revealed, but the dude pretty much doomed everyone on his ship and kept on dooming other sea-going folk. Lots of dooming. So I guess he was evil...let's move on!

Next up, an illithid, of Dungeons & Dragons fame! Also known as mind flayers, these squidfaces live deep underground in the lightless caverns known as the Underdark.

Aside from having incredible psionic mind powers, they also suck out your spicy brains and munch on them. So....that's not very good. I guess they're evil too. Man, I really suck at proving things! Let's keep going!

Tessek! He's a Quarren, an aquatic species from Star Wars fiction.

Tessek was Jabba the Hutt's accountant, but developed a guilty conscience in doing business with the crime lord. That's good, right? Then he started plotting to have Jabba killed...er...and later he shot a B'omarr monk...which is...bad.

But then much later he was forcibly recruited by the B'omarr, and had his brain removed, as is their custom! So...that one's kind of hard to tell. But we're getting better! Onwards!

Dr. Zoidberg, of Futurama! This squidface doesn't wear boots, he just eats them. He'd do anything to end his miserable loneliness. If only he wasn't incredibly poor!

In addition to eating guinea pigs and sifting through trash cans, he offers his medical services to humans, a species of which he has little to no understanding. However, he means well, and is very funny! Good job being one of the good guys, Zoidberg! We're on the way up! What's next?

Oh, it's an elephant, a mono-tentacled creature! While not much of a true squidface, elephants have the added edge of being actual creatures that live on the planet Earth. They're also the largest land mammals around these days!

Elephants are super laid-back and are just content to wander about eating and sleeping and making cute baby elephants. Let's hear it for our elephant friends! Nothing evil here!

And finally...um...Cthulhu. He's an extremely nightmarish alien creature. He cannot be described, and should not be.

He is the unimaginable green horror from on high, one of the Great Old Ones, extraterrestrial beings of incredible power and colossal size, worshiped by deranged cults. He's...pretty horrible. Much more so than an elephant.

Did I prove anything today? Not really. But I did get to scribble some funny doodles, and in the end, is that not the most important thing? Rather!

Labels: muse, sketchbook

I've discovered more ancient cave paintings in the dank recesses of my local disk, and would like to share them with you, the archaeological community.

Carbon dating indicates that these illustrations date back an astonishing three years! Quite the find! As you can see, the Neanderthal artisan in question attempted to create little figures in various poses.


There are some pyrotechnic and simian themes present here. One could only speculate at what it all really means for yourself and the community at large. Will it throw all of our conceptions about Neanderthal man into question? Truly, it could be so!

Labels: sketchbook

What would it be like if instead of cars, everyone used horses? I don't mean as if transportation progression stopped when it hit horse technology. I mean if suddenly all cars disappeared off the roads, and horses replaced them! How unprecedented!

It would be quite interesting. Imagine the highway. It would be a mass of people riding animals with 1-horsepower each. And none of that horse-drawn carriage nonsense. Just horses! Horses for all!

You'd have to merge your horse off the ramp and into incoming horse traffic. Don't forget to flash your horse signal to indicate your lane change! Horses with one rider would travel the main lanes, while horses with two riders could travel in the horsepool lane. Just hope that you don't end up stuck in a horse jam, or worse, a horse accident.

Don't drink and ride! And don't commit crimes and try to flee on your getaway horse, as I'm sure the law would run you down in an exciting horse chase.

Families would have a couple of horses tied up in their driveways, for their family outings and whatnot. Kids going to school would probably ride a string of ponies all tied together, with the horsedriver on the lead horse in front.

The streets would be lined with parked horses. You might find yourself in a situation where you have to parallel park your horse between two other horses. Don't forget to feed the meter, or you might return to your horse to find a parking ticket slapped across it's face.

People might hose down their horses at home in their driveways, or take them to the horsewash to splurge for a high gloss wax. You'd also have to take your horse to the hay station every now and then, to recharge its energy.

The horse companies would come out with new horse models every year. They might start genetically modifying horses to run faster, such as the Sonic Ultrahorse. Maybe they'll create larger Sport Utility Horses to carry more things and handle difficult terrain. Or they might build a hybrid horse that gets better hay mileage to avoid a hay shortage.

I can see two downsides to the horse situation, though. One is that you'd probably end up carrying a shotgun everywhere you go, in case your horse busts a leg. Horrible.

The other thing is that there would probably be a lot of horse shit everywhere.

Labels: muse

No, that's not a new RPG I'm starting up...although....no, no, must stay on topic. Here's another heaping helping of delicious tidbits from the distant past. It's a smörgåsbord of treats that I scrawled onto some flimsi back in 2K5.

Apparently I couldn't be bothered to ink or colour any of these items, so I just scanned 'em played with the levels on the old pencil work to make it look all special. Behold!

These follow a fantasy theme I guess, with a dwarf (my favourite), some kind of viking guy, a weird blocky demon man, some lizard dudes, and an orc. Or ogre. Some kinda tusked brute anyways.

In a related note, the word "smörgåsbord" is a fusion of the Swedish words meaning "sandwich table". Also, the word "smörgås" itself is already a fusion of words meaning "butter goose". So what I've shown you today is, quite literally, a butter goose table of goodness.

Labels: sketchbook

So I thought I'd start subjecting you all to more artwork now. Old stuff, even. Really old and crappy stuff. The stuff I'm about to show you, for example.

The following are depictions of yours truly, created by yours truly, circa 2K4-2K6. All drawn with pencil, inked (and I mean that it's most simplistic sense), scanned, coloured, and, in a few fancy places, shaded (again, in it's most simplistic sense). Be in awe.

The majority of these were created to give a handsome element to the header graphics of some previous websites and blogs that I've long since tossed to the invisible wolves that live inside my brain chamber.

Some of them are just the results of me screwing around for no particular reason other than to amuse myself. The Boba Fett one, for example. FOR MANDALOOOORE!

*ahem*

Nevermind that, carry on now. I'll just be off. Farewell, goodbye, for Mandalore, all that. Toodles!

Labels: comics

Let me tell you about young Gavin Stover. A simple hunter lad from the West, he travelled to the East to seek the aid of heroes in ridding his land of the marauding orcs that plague it. Little did he know that he'd be thrust into a wide world of adventure!

Why, just the other day, Gavin caught a squid-like chest-burster in a big bag of salt, where it thrashed and bubbled, dissolving to death. It had of course been accompanied by shards of both sternum and spinal column, as well as a bucket's worth of bloody entrails, due to the fact that it had just leapt from the thorax of a comrade-in-arms.

After that Gavin embedded a battle axe past the unprotected pectorals of an orc, splintering the ribs and decorating the landscape and himself with the reddish hue of internal orcish whatnots.

Then Gavin went on to fire some arrows at a wyvern while his companions tripped it up with some rope and hacked it into yummy wyvern meat, a feast suitable for gala events or box socials or just some good old fashioned camping out in orc-infested foothills.

All of these things accomplished with the roll of some dice! That's right. Gavin Stover is none other than your friendly neighbourhood Matt. I'm into the thick of a role-playing game over at Stuart's place, RuneQuest to be precise. I've wanted to get into the traditional tabletop pencil and paper RPG type stuff for a long while, and it's a good old time.

So it finally happened, true believers. I went over to the other side. That dark and terrible place that your standard carbon-based meat unit fears like nothing else. But, my fellow land monsters, you only fear because you do not understand. I forgive you.

I'd like to extend my thanks to Stuart, Steve, and Mike for putting up with my n00b-like ways for the time being. Oh, and the rest of you might be subjected to Gavin's exploits every now and again. That's just how it's going to roll around here now. Pun definitely intended.

(P.S. Isn't Wikipedia great?)

Labels: live, play

No more lineups, no more SKUs.
No more coffee that didn't brew.

No more pitchers, no more spoons.
No more crazy afternoons.

No more shots, no more glasses.
No more whiny, impatient masses.

No more milk, no more steam.
No more empty whipping cream.

No more lactaid, no more soy.
No more customer whipping boy.

No more blending, no more Frapps.
No more requests for Tim's Iced Capps.

No more old grinds weighing tons.
No more twelve bag garbage runs.

No more mop, no more broom.
No more unclean, gross washroom.

No more service, it's time to stop.
No more working at a coffee shop.

Labels: work, write

Hear this, citizens of the world, people who I do not know, and have never met before.

Dudes, do not call me bro. I'm not your sibling. I'm not your brother in arms. Don't call me pal or buddy, I'm neither. I don't think you're cool. In fact, I think you might be a douchebag. You might just be a bag of douche. Your collar is turned up and the brim of your hat isn't broken in. For all I know, you kick baby unicorns. You might kick mythical creatures in their faces while they're still infants. Who knows? I sure don't!

Dudettes, don't call me hon. I'm not your honeybunch. I'm not your cuddly snugglebum. Don't call me sweetie because I'm not your sweetheart. I don't think you're cute. In fact, I'm starting to think you're a hobag. You might just be a bag of ho. Your shirt is almost non-existant and your ass-crack shows. You might kick mythical creatures in their faces while they're still infants. Maybe not, but who can say? Not me!

That is all.

Labels: rant

As I sit here eating my way through three hardboiled eggs, one of them horribly mutated thanks to my less-than-delicate touch in placing them in the pot, I am contemplating.

My contemplations have led me to the conclusion that I must tell you about my online handle. I'm sure you will find this most fascinating. Wait...wait...I've got to watch an episode of Family Guy while I eat these eggs. Hold on.

Okay, I'm back to this now. After Family Guy I worked on one of my comic projects for a bit. Did the drawing and inking and now it's in the scanner, but I didn't scan it yet. I also ordered a pizza which will be ready in 15 minutes. So let's write a bit more!

I guess it's fitting that all this time is passing while I put this post together, as my online handle, in it's entirety, is chr0nometer, which relates to keeping time and the passage of time in several forms.

The name actually made it's first appearance on the old SWG Genboards, the common way we refer to the original Star Wars Galaxies General Discussion Forum (have fun looking through that archived nonsense, sports fans!). I was surfing some random gaming site when I saw an ad for SWG in one of those fancy animated tower banners. Intrigued, I clicked on it, and entered an online world of wonderment that I'm still involved in to this day. That was...seven years ago? Eight? Maybe!

Previously I went by handles like Dreadnaught and variations of such, but I thought it was too evil sounding. The name I registered with, though, was the obnoxious all-caps CHR0NO, with a fancy zero in the center to mix it up. Despite what many people would later think, I didn't take the name from the game Chrono Trigger, as I hadn't even played that game and was scarcely aware of it at the time (though I have since played almost all of it, and it's pretty sweet...so far!).

Anyways, I was actually looking for online nicknames in names from old Greek mythology and whatnot, and came across Chronos, the personification of time (not to be confused with Cronus, the titan). Chronos is apparently also the god of space, and emerged from Chaos (the dark void from which gods spew). He was imagined as incorporeal, serpentine, and had three heads (a man, a bull, and a lion), though these days he's usually portrayed as the Father Time figure, the old guy with the clock and sickle fetish.

Regardless of all that, I just thought it was a cool name, and I like discussing weird stuff like space and time and spacetime and continuums (without having any actually scientific knowledge or facts) so I dumped the "s" off the end, and went with CHR0NO. Historical records would claim that I had it in all-caps because I had caps lock on when I entered my name, but truth be told, I just liked how it looked :)

It was only after I started going by CHR0NO that I realized that "chrono" and variations of such were quite common across the intarwebs. But I paid no heed, because I was the only one with that name on the Genboards, and that was good enough for me (some other n00b showed up later with a chrono-ish name, but he wasn't as slick, so we paid him little attention).

As is my custom, though, I started switchin' it up. I dropped the caps and went by chr0no_riggs for a while. I must've just finished watching Lethal Weapon or something. I thought it was kinda cool, but don't think it was too popular with the folks about town! After that nonsense I went to full on chr0nometer, because that's what a lot of people were calling me anyways, as a nickname for my nickname.

There's actually been a lot of nicknames for my nickname, which is sorta weird. I don't mean one or two, I mean...ten...or so. They've included such clever names such as...hang on, pizza's here. I'll continue in a second...

Okay, I'm done with pizza now. I watched an episode of MXC while I was eating it, the one with Team USA versus the World. Pretty awesome. Onwards now!

So yeah, nicknames for my nickname. They've included variations such as chr0nomenon, chr0nosaurus, chr0-magnon man, chr0ntastic, chr0nslice, chr0ns, chl0no (that's my evil clone), chr0nopants (my favourite), chr0n00b (something pretty much only Rec calls me, that English git!) and what I think is the first nickname nickname I got, I think also from Rec: chr0nads (ho ho!).

For a while I started going by ridger, as Ridger Khronos is the name of my SWG character that just became my regular every-day SW character (using Ridgerion a few times in fantasy settings!), but I soon switched back to good ol' chr0nometer (or chr0no, for short!).

Well that's that I guess. The world is safe for another day.

Labels: live, play, write

A couple of my online buddies have joined the little blogosphere we've got going on here, so I thought I'd just make a post to give them some recognition, and also make it look like I have something interesting to say....and also to move that Smoke on the Water video down a bit, because I'm tired of looking at it!

First of the two newcomers to the Blogosphere of Righteousness is my pal 201d. Yes, yes, it's a handle, and I didn't put his real name (as is my custom here) but from past conversations with the dude, I don't think he's really fond of his real life moniker. Besides, his handle is pretty cool. It's actually l33tsp34k for "zoid", which I believe stems from the cartoon character Freakazoid, if memory serves me correctly. If not, sorry for twisting your backstory man! Anyways, our own personal Dr. Zoidberg just started up his new blog (having left a previous one), so we'll all be watching in anticipation to see how he runs his show!

The second newcomer is my friend Mark from across the pond, who goes by the name Turra online (possibly in reference to his last name, I think?). You should go to his site because it has a sweet url, and your browser's address line will highlight with glee upon it appearing there. He hadn't updated it for almost a year until we started this blogging business, and he decided to get in on our nonsense. So all of us here at wrathböx watch him in anticipation too!

These two guys have been a part of my online group for a long time (ie. years, with an accurate number in front to indicate how many, a number I don't currently hold in my memory banks) and I welcome them to the Blogosphere of Righteousness! How will this all proceed? Only time will tell!

Addendum!

A new contender has entered the arena! I was just informed by my sister Sabrina (known on the intarwebs as Tacks) that she has a bloggy blog too! I'd write more about it, but I have to go to work now! *gone!*

Labels: live